Troy Murray Bridge
Last night the sleepy hollow of Murray Bridge was renamed to Troy Murray Bridge…..and here’s why….
Troy loaded up the “Mayhem” bus with five runners to tackle the 11 race meeting at Murray Bridge. It didn’t get off to a great start with “From The Gallery” having his first crack on the one turn track. You gotta be strong up the bridge and “From The Gallery” found it a bit of a challenge and finished out of the placings….. but he’ll bounce back no doubt and we’ll see him in the winners circle soon!
His second runner bobbed up in Race 6 – Murray Bridge Community Club Stake - and was aptly named “Golden Night”. Another recent arrival to the Murray kennel with 4 local starts under his belt – all at Gawler or Angle Park. A handy first up win at Gawler over the shorts in sub 23 seconds suggested he was a strong dog so Murray Bridge would be the acid test – especially over the middle distance of 455m. And the test was met head on with the son of Go Wild Teddy leading from go to whoa and stopping the clocking in a best of the night time of 25:34! Impressive first run!
Next up was Spring Cuervo in Race 7 – Rural City of Murray Bridge Stake – and again over the 455m. Spring Cuervo is a well-travelled dog having raced and won in Darwin last year and recently had a stint down the Mount having three wins over the 512m trip all in sub 29:80. Hooley Dooley! He seems to do his best racing from the bookends – box 1 or box 8 – and last night he drew the pink rug! He jumped safely from the 8 and held his line settling third. He and Allinga Lily came together for a brief moment around the bend and the big boy dropped back a touch but was still within sight of the leaders. The difference was the turn into the home straight. Power burner and Boss McLaren ran wide and Spring Cuervo held the rail. He saw daylight and in true Chariots of Fire style ran home harder and got the nod in a solid 25:48.
Songs and Stories was the next to don a racing rug and we were back over the 395m trip in the Kurt Donsberg Photography - and the jovial, chubster was on hand to photograph the kennel grab a running treble! This race was over the even longer 530m which we don’t see often but the field was set and the lids went up. Miss Breakout was the early leader but Sings and Stories moved up about 80m into the race and from there the $2.10 pop looked home….and he was! He broke 30 seconds for the run which is a tops time and went away tow in by 5.5 lengths.
The final of the 5 Murray runners was Velocity Bottino in the lucky last and it proved to be just that. Velocity Bottino was the favourite and was odds on. Like from The Gallery, it was her first look at Murray Bridge and she too proved that she was up for the challenge. From box 2, her most successful box, she leapt out and was in front from the get go. She copped a bit of stick early from Claretown Magic but she kept her mind on the job at hand, put her head down and said “I’m outta here!” She went on to win by 4.25 lengths in 22:26, another best of the night performance, and gave Troy Murray 4 winners for the night.
All Troy’s dogs went personal best times for the night. Golden Night, Songs & Stories and Velocity Bottino also went Best of the night over three different distances too!! I’m not sure if I’ve seen that before….. I’m sure someone will tell me if I have tho. Bonza effort Troy!
Anyway, that was Murray Bridge for the 23rd of August 2020, and that was my story!